We were extremely disappointed to learn that you will be appearing at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim International Writers Festival in Jerusalem in May. Funded by the state of Israel, the festival is a highly political event: in 2010 its keynote speakers were President Shimon Peres and Minister of Culture Limor Livnat. The festival has the stated aim of ‘improving the image of Jerusalem around the world’ – yet in defiance of international law it celebrates the ‘reunification of Jerusalem’. The UN has designated Jerusalem as the shared capital of Israel and a future Palestinian state, and what the festival calls ‘reunification’ all right-minded people call illegal occupation and colonisation.

In your journalism and fiction you have written extensively on Israel and Palestine. You are surely aware that Israel has no sovereign rights over East Jerusalem, yet it has located its main police station and Ministry of Justice there; has divided Palestinian neighbourhoods with a concrete wall; and has confiscated a staggering 35% of the city’s land for illegal Jewish-only settlements. Flouting UN calls to cease its policies of displacement, Israel routinely revokes Arab Israeli residency permits and demolishes Palestinian homes. Jerusalem, as a result, is a deeply divided city, carved up and scarred by an apartheid state. Just down the valley from the luxurious premises of Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Palestinian children in the neighbourhood of Silwan are being kidnapped from their beds in the middle of the night, interrogated, threatened and beaten.

Your journalism has also explored how, in your own life, you have moved away from the militant Zionism you were brought up to believe in. As official peace talks founder, we respectfully encourage you to take one more decisive step toward a just peace in the region, and join us in heeding the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel. A non-violent grassroots campaign, with the sole aim of pressuring Israel to abide by international law, the boycott does not target individual Jews or Judaism, but asks all writers of conscience to decline invitations to Israeli state-sponsored events such as the Mishkenot Sha’ananim Festival.
Yours Sincerely,